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Archive for the ‘Architecture’ Category

June 22nd, 2011

The Vienna Way Residence was designed by Marmol Radziner and built on a plot of land in Venice, California. The house is comprised of two main volumes and bridged by a third which contains a lowered kitchen area. In one of the main volumes is the formal living and dining areas. In the other are more casual spaces as well as private spaces that include bedrooms on both floors.

Looking at the kitchen you can see such a powerful use of dark woods lining the cabinet panelling, on the countertops and also above on the ceiling. As I looked further into these photos I wasn’t able to spot a refrigerator. My guess would be that it is half sized and build into the space of a cabinet; an interesting approach.

June 19th, 2011

The Bird Park apartments, created by Hiroshi Nakamura & NAP, are located in Ebisu, Tokyo where the residents can live in complete harmony. With sustainable living projects comes the question of how to build around the environment without damaging it. The architects designed these apartments around the trees—each is positioned to avoid the branches. As I would have questioned, each apartment also is positioned far enough away from the branches or the tree to prevent a collision when the trees sway. Bird houses were also attached to the siding at the top of the building.

June 16th, 2011

As I would have suspected, the master typographer Erik Spiekermann, has a deluxe, modern house in Berlin. Some features include a full Bulthaup kitchen, a bookshelf that requires a hoisting harness to peruse it, and prismatic windows that allow warmth from the sun to pass through only when hit at a low angle. Sold yet?

On the fifth floor is the office of Spiekermann and his wife Susanna Dulkinys—a designer. The sixth floor is the kitchen and living area while the seventh floor is the bedroom. All of the surfaces of the house are painted a shade of light grey. It keeps the interior bright and cool but not cold.

Susanna Dulkinys on keeping the house’s interior free from clutter:

It’s like creating white space so you can free your mind and be creative.

June 15th, 2011

If you’re limited on space and need to add a guest room to your house, this is the way to do it. Perhaps even if you just need a creative hideout to get away from your main workspace, then this is the space to have. The designer, Manuel Villa created the space in Bogota, Colombia in 2009.

June 8th, 2011

Seeing Steve Jobs these days is a treat. He is truly a man of respect and seeing him present the new Apple headquarters is very enlightening and his presentation is very humble.

Towards the end of the presentation it feels a little strange to see that the members of the City Council seem more concerned about their personal benefits and really don’t have any useful questions. Instead they’re asking for wifi and a potentially unsuccessful store to be placed in Cupertino.

Jobs wants to build one building that holds 12,000 Apple employees on a former Hewlett-Packard property in the area between Tantau North Wolfe, Homestead and the 280.”It’s a little like a spaceship landed,” Jobs says. No kidding.

Jobs begins the presentation referring to the fact that Apple is growing “like a weed,” and that its current campus at D’Anza and the 280 isn’t enough currently — fitting only about 2,800 people. Apple currently rents buildings to house its other 9,200 employees in the area.

Apple purchased about 150 acres from Hewlett Packard, which is now apricot orchards and has corralled some of the “best architects” to come up with a design that puts 12,000 people in one four story high building.

Apple apparently is using its experience building retail stores, and will create a large-scale piece of glass if the proposal goes through. “There’s not a single straight piece of glass in this building,” Jobs says. The parking will be underground.

Jobs also wants the building to function as its own power source, with an “energy center” as its primary source of power (“with natural gas and other ways that are cleaner and cheaper,”), using the grid as a backup.

The campus will also include amenities like its own auditorium similar to Apple’s current town hall (“We’ve got an auditorium, cause we put on presentations, much like we did yesterday but we have to go to San Francisco to do them.”) and a cafeteria that will feed 3,000 people at one sitting.

“We do have a shot at building the best office building in the world,” Jobs told the Council members, “Architecture students will come here to see this.” Ideally Apple wants to move into the campus in 2015.

June 8th, 2011

The Bryden House sits atop a slope near Witta on the coast of Queensland, Australia. There is no shortage of great view over the rolling hills with this location. Some of the goals of building the house were to have a low impact and low maintenance home that provided a welcoming place for a family.

June 6th, 2011

Whistler, B.C. is known for having amazing, luxurious contemporary homes. This particular one known as the Compass Pointe House was designed by Sean Anderson while the final touches were completed by Kelly Deck.

As you walk into the house through a 10-foot Italian pivot door, you’ll notice the two-storey vaulted ceilings. The floors are hardwoods alongside heated tile limited areas of carpet. There are a number of other features to see, but I particularly enjoy the private patio and stylish on-wall wine collection. All of it could be yours for $6,490,000.

May 31st, 2011

Situated to the west of Moscow, Russia is this intriguing contemporary house. The architects positioned the house atop a hill with the intentions of utilizing the views. Since the view looking north wasn’t as good as the rest, they decided to block it off. This gave them the idea of the folding structure, which really gives the house its uniqueness.

If you look closely in the first image you can see the garage goes right into one of the structure folds. This gives me the idea that when I do finally conceptualize my house I’d like to have a garage that you can’t see. The garage door would be flush and of the same color—think Batman’s cave.

May 30th, 2011

Ray Kappe is a master architect. His design is very engaging for myself and I would hope for you as well. Ray Kappe worked with Living Homes to create this modular house. On average each module—there are eleven—weights 10,000 pounds and only took eight hours to assemble. The cost of buying one of these homes starts at $590,000. Not bad for such a nice looking place to live.

May 27th, 2011

It’s really not fair that San Francisco has all of these cool houses. To be able to tour these someday would be a pleasure. Seeing houses in person always puts an even better perspective for the beauty of them. Terry & Terry Architecture refurbished this house into a more modern marvel.

I really like the fact that the roof was designed to collect water run-off and store it in holding tanks for later use. On the north end of the roof there are also photovoltaic solar panels put to use.

May 24th, 2011

When I think of Texas nowhere in that thought is green grass, water or large trees. Talk about a skewed perception of the state. Fortunately that has been renewed by this house in Austin built by Andersson Wise Architects. Ultimately it seems more like a lookout tower which only makes it cooler.

The reason for building in the style of a tower was to limit the environmental footprint and take advantage of the view over the water.

May 23rd, 2011

It seems rare that you get to see the home where an architect actually lives. Fortunately Arthur Casas listed his own home on in his portfolio. The fact that the house lies within the Rain Forest of Sao Paulo, Brazil is just dreamy. The interiors are open to the outside giving the whole home its energy. I imagine the outside sounds are quite amazing as well; the thought alone of sitting outside on the deck is blowing my mind.